Pretending
by 15Kandy K
Summary: “Well...um... I-er... is it...” He swallowed. “okay... to like another boy?” “Well, I think so...” “E-even... if th-they aren't from the same t-time as you?” Oneshot. Shounen-ai NessxLucas PokeyxClaus


Hey guys. This is a one-shot I've written for EarthBound. **It's Shounen-ai, which means boyxboy pairings. Don't like it? Don't read/review. **

Disclaimer: Mother 2/EarthBound and Mother 3 belong to Nintendo, I DO NOT own any of the characters in this story.

This story is dedicated to my friend, Taylor, for introducing me to the Mother series and making me a fan of it.

Ok, I'll stop blabbing now...

_**Pretending**_

I came here a lot when I wanted to think.

A boy sat on top of a hill, looking down into the sea of sunflowers at the bottom of said hill. He had red hair, and his eyes were green. Well, one was.

The other was red.

He was confused. A lot of weird things had happened in the past, but none had confused him like this. He was a 'go with the flow' kind of guy. He adapted to changes easily. So what bothered him so much? Why was he so confused?

He was in love.

He was denying it. Well, he tried to, anyway.

He sighed and sat back, looking to the sky.

"Claus!" He turned to see a boy, almost identical to him, except with blond hair and blue eyes, running towards him.

"I knew I'd find you here," he said, sitting next to Claus.

"What's up, Lucas?" Claus asked his twin.

"I just wanted to... hang out..." Lucas said, blushing as he looked at his fingers.

Claus raised an eyebrow. "Hang out?" he laughed out. "Come on, bro, you suck at lying."

Lucas sighed. "I-..." He looked anywhere but at Claus, his fingers tangled together. Claus waited for his brother, knowing his shy personality. "Well...um... I-er... is it..." He swallowed. "okay... to like another boy?" Lucas finally got out softly, his face pink.

Claus stared at his brother, taking in what he had asked.

_To like another boy..._

"Well, I think so..." Claus said. Lucas slowly looked at Claus, not as pink as before.

"R-really?" Lucas asked hopefully.

Claus smiled. "Yeah." He was not only telling this to Lucas, but to himself as well.

Lucas blushed and his eyes shot to the ground once again.

"E-even... if th-they aren't from the same t-time as you?" Lucas asked, drawing imaginary circles on the ground.

Claus's eyes widened. He didn't know how to answer that.

He was almost scared to.

"I... don't know..." Claus said, "but... go for it."

Lucas looked up to Claus with a small smile.

"Th-thanks, Claus..." Lucas said. He pulled his knees to his chest and looked down to the sunflowers below.

Claus returned the smile and sat back again, but within a few moments, curiosity got to him.

"So... Who is he?" Claus asked, keeping his focus to the sky.

Lucas turned red and looked to the ground. "..."

"Come on, you can tell me!" Claus said, looking at his brother now.

"W-well..."

"Yeah?"

"I-... he... erm..."

"Who, Lucas?" Claus couldn't keep the curious tone out of his voice.

Lucas gulped. "N...nnn..." Lucas mumbled something incoherent.

"Uh... what?" Claus asked.

Lucas mumbled again.

"I can't understand you..."

"N-ness! I... Ness..." Lucas finally got out, redder than Ness's cap.

"Really? Hm. Makes sense, though," Claus said, smiling. "Lighten up, come on," Claus said, giving the frozen boy next to him a playful punch on the arm before sitting back again.

About a year ago, when the twins were 13, Claus and Lucas had ended up in the town of Onett, in the year 199X, long before they were born. To this day, they have no idea how they got here, but it changed their lives forever.

"_C-Claus! W-wait! Don't leave me alone in here!" Lucas ran up to his brother, cowering. Claus had recently been revived again by King P, but with better intentions in mind. He wasn't brain-washed; he remembered everything of his past._

_It was night-time, the rain was pouring, and the boys had no where to go. _

_They were in a cave, Claus's curiosity getting them into another situation. The cave was very dark; the boys could barely see their own hands in front of their faces. The only reason Lucas could find Claus was because his red eye glowed in the darkness. _

_Lucas had his arms wrapped around himself, looking around in fear. Each noise scared him half to death. "C-claus... I don't like it in here..."_

"_Calm down, we need a place to stay anyw-"_

_He was cut off by a blinding green light starting to glow in front of them._

"_What the fu-"_

"_RUN!" Lucas cut his brother off, grabbing his arm and running as fast as he could as the light seemed to chase them. Lucas shut his eyes as the light enveloped them._

_The boys opened their eyes as they felt the light leave, just in time to see the wall they were about to run into."WHOA!" **Crash.**_

"_Ugh..." Claus sat up, rubbing his head. Lucas soon pushed himself up as well._

"_C-claus... where are we?"_

"_I... I don't know, Lucas..."_

_It was night-time, but the sky was clear. They looked to their left to see a hole in the wall of the shack they had run into._

"_Well... let's go." Claus said, standing and walking towards the hole._

"_But-" Lucas sighed, getting up to follow his brother._

_oOooOooOooOooOooOo_

_They had found out that they had apparently run out of a cave that led to a place called "Giant Step." They had passed the library and decided to take the left path. It couldn't have been too late, because there were two boys outside of two houses, talking to each other. One had a yellow and blue striped shirt, blue jean shorts, and a red and blue baseball cap. The other was a bit larger, with a white T-shirt and overalls._

"_Let's talk to them, find out where we are," Claus said to Lucas. Lucas nodded, somewhat surprising Claus that he wasn't scared. Lucas's eyes were locked on the boy with the baseball cap._

"_Hey!" Claus shouted over to the boys. They looked over to them and Claus and Lucas ran over. Lucas felt his fear come back when he looked at the boy in the overalls, and he stayed behind Claus. He couldn't help but feel... safer... when he looked at the one in the cap. He didn't know why. _

"_Hi! I'm Ness," the boy in the cap said, smiling. The boy in the overalls was frowning at Claus and Lucas. "That's Pokey."_

Why is that name familiar? Both of their names are...

"_Hi, I'm Claus and this is my twin brother, Lucas. Do you think you could help us?"_

"_Hmpf." That was all they got out of Pokey as the boy crossed his arms._

"_Don't mind him, I'll help," Ness said._

"_Thanks. Could you tell us where we are?"_

"_Onett."_

"_O-onett?!" Lucas asked, surprising them all with his sudden outburst._

"_Yeah..." Ness said with an eyebrow raised at Lucas. Claus seemed to piece things together as well and his eyes got as wide as Lucas's._

"_What year is this?!" Claus asked him._

"_Er... 199X ... Why?" Ness and Pokey were giving them both odd looks._

_Claus and Lucas looked at each other. "Oh... SHIT." Claus said, putting his face in his hands. Lucas hugged himself, looking around with even more fear in his eyes._

"_What is your problem?!" Pokey suddenly exploded at them, leaning towards them._

"_We're not from this time!" Claus yelled back at him, also leaning so that they were in each other's faces. _

"_What do you mean by that?" Ness asked, putting a hand of both of their shoulders to separate them._

_Claus sighed. "It's a long story."_

"_I'm all ears. You guys can all come inside and we'll sit around in there. Then you can tell us," Ness said. _

_Claus shrugged. "Okay."_

_Lucas looked to see all eyes on him and he blushed lightly. "S-sure..."_

_They headed inside, and Claus and Lucas told them their story, even if it was hard to relive. _

_And thus began the friendship between them. Paula, Poo, and Jeff, too._

"There you are, Lucas!"

Lucas blushed lightly and felt butterflies in his stomach as he turned to see Ness running over to them.

"H-hi, Ness..."

"I gotta show you this! You wanna come, too, Claus?" Ness was obviously excited about something.

Claus smirked. "Nah, you two go on... alone."

Lucas's eyes widened and he looked at Claus, who only flashed him a devilish grin.

"Okay! C'mon!" Ness said, grabbing Lucas's hand and pulling the blushing boy along with him.

Claus grinned after them, but his thoughts soon turned to the one who had captured his heart.

Pokey.

Claus sighed. Ever since the boy actually started to talk to him, and when he started to lose weight, the feeling had developed. He had thought it was just friendship. It was normal. It was nothing! But it never worked.

_We're just friends... _Claus sighed.

_But I never felt this way about Ness or Jeff of Paula or Poo or... anyone else! Augh, why is this so damn confusing?!_

"Arg!" Claus threw himself on his back and covered his face with his hands. He wasn't used to being so confused.

So scared.

Scared of many truths. He liked another boy, and people would look down on that. They're from different times... and Pokey directly affected his history. He could change his home if something happened with Pokey.  
Worst of all...

Pokey probably didn't like him. Not the way Claus liked him. Sure, when they were goofing around, Pokey would pretend to almost kiss Claus, that they were in a relationship, things like that.

But that's the thing. He was _pretending_.

Claus groaned. "Pokey... what have you done to me?" Claus's voice was muffled beneath his hands.

"I don't know, what _have_ I done to you?"

Claus shot up and looked at Pokey with wide eyes.

_Oh shit!_

"Well?" Pokey asked, arms crossed, flashing a grin.

_Damn that grin... reply, dammit, reply!_

"N-nothing..." Claus's was blushing. _Stupid!_

Pokey sat down next to Claus, grinning, proud of what he had done to the boy. "Okay then."

This was it. Claus couldn't deny it anymore. Sitting here, next to him, he knew how he felt. And he didn't care anymore. He didn't care about the people. He didn't care about the timelines. He loved Pokey, and he needed to show him.

Now.

"Er... Pokey?" Claus started, blushing lightly.

"Yeah?"

"I... Do you want to go down to the sunflowers?"

Pokey shrugged. "Sure, whatever."

The two got up and started down the hill.

"Are you okay, Claus?" Pokey asked, looking behind himself at his normally humorous friend, who was now fidgeting and nervous.

Claus looked up at Pokey "Y-yeah... I'm fi-IIEEAH!"

Not paying attention, he had tripped over a large rock, and started tumbling, taking Pokey down with him.

The boys held onto each other as they tumbled down the hill, and slowly rolled to a stop somewhere amongst the forest of sunflowers.

They opened their eyes to find that Pokey was on top of Claus. The boys blushed. They both had petals, grass, and leaves stuck in their hair and on their clothes. Pokey started to push himself off of Claus when Claus's hands suddenly flew up, pulling Pokey's lips to his.

Claus soon broke the kiss to see Pokey's reaction.

The boy stared at him with wide eyes, and Claus felt his heart drop. He looked away from Pokey.

When suddenly, he felt Pokey's lips smash down onto his.

The two finally broke the kiss for air.

"I... can't believe..." Claus started, still rather breathless from the kiss.

"You couldn't honestly think I only pretended to love you." Pokey flashed that grin that always made Claus melt.

Pokey dipped his head down again to meet Claus's lips, this time in a much more gentle, loving kiss.

Pokey and Claus walked back up the hill holding hands.

"I wonder how Lucas is doing with Ness..." Claus mumbled.

"Ness and Lucas?" Pokey asked with an eyebrow raised. Claus nodded.

"Well, Lucas likes him."

"Hm. Well, Ness always did _pretend_ to love him." Pokey grinned.

Claus chuckled. "I wonder if it was the say you _pretended_ to love me." Claus gave his hand a squeeze.

_oOooOooOooOooOooOo_

The two heard voices as they walked back up the hill, so they quieted to try and listen. They identified them as Ness and Lucas, but couldn't make out what was being said. They quietly moved behind a rock, when the voices ceased. Pokey and Claus looked at each other then peaked from behind the rock.

Ness had his arms around Lucas's waist and Lucas's arms were around his neck. They were both sitting on the ground.

Sharing a kiss of their own.

"I guess no one was pretending after all," Pokey whispered to Claus, putting an arm around him.


End file.
